


unbreak broken

by chinuplilpup



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: F/F, Trans Character, Uniforms, i wouldnt say uniform kink but there are uniforms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-26
Updated: 2017-11-26
Packaged: 2019-02-07 01:10:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12830115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chinuplilpup/pseuds/chinuplilpup
Summary: Natalya wanted— She wanted a lot of things, but right now she would settle for the weight of Tea’s palm back on her thigh.Natalya Greaves and Tea Kenridge have some unresolved sexual tension on the Seventh Sun, and then it gets resolved.





	unbreak broken

**Author's Note:**

> re-listened to the kingdom game and here i am. this contains spoilers up to the finale of the kingdom game in counter/weight

Natalya was kind of done panicking when she heard a knock on the door. She was fine. The panic had hit a plateau and she would be fine, and then Righteousness would join the fleet and she would be fine. 

She took a deep breath, and another, and opened the door. 

Tea stood outside. She didn’t say hello. Instead, she said, “I saw Orth.”

Natalya’s spine jerked straighter, a tell she thought she had crushed out of herself a long time ago. 

“He said he’d told you,” Tea said, “about Ibex.”

Oh. Natalya tightened her grip on the doorframe. “Yeah.”

“Yeah.” Tea’s mouth twisted. They knew what they both thought about that. “Your plan was a good one.”

Was. Natalya nodded. 

“If you got what you said you could.” Tea shrugged. “But, you know. Sorry about how it went down.”

“It’s okay.” It sounded flat to Natalya’s own ears, and Tea didn’t look convinced. “All the refugees are guaranteed welcome now, right?”

“Yeah. That’s the plan.” Tea sighed. “Anyway, what I came to ask is do you wanna grab a drink at the commissary?” 

If Natalya had been less surprised by the offer, she would have declined on instinct. 

Tea said, “Don’t worry, it should be mostly empty. Won’t have to deal with the Gambit or anything.”

Natalya glanced over her shoulder at what she knew was an empty room and a shattered space iPad. “Alright.”

There were a few people sitting in the commissary, mostly soldiers on break from overnight guard shifts. Tea greeted a few of them by name as she and Natalya walked in. Someone cleaning up behind the counter nodded a hello. Tea nodded back and made a deceptively simple hand gesture. The woman clearly took some meaning from it that was lost on Natalya, and quickly ducked into the kitchens. 

Tea followed her. Over her shoulder she said, “Find a seat, will ya?”

Natalya did. 

Tea came back with bottles and cups balanced in her arms like she was a waitress in a past life. A bottle of clear liquor, two shot glasses, and a surplus of plastic water bottles. She sat down on the bench next to Natalya instead of across the table, and laid it all out.

Natalya caught a water bottle before it rolled off the edge. “Is there a shortage I should know about?”

Tea rolled her eyes. “For tomorrow morning.” She uncapped the liquor and started pouring out two shots as she spoke. “Though I don’t think you’re up early for a photo op with Candidate Ibex and Righteousness.”

Right. Natalya’s stomach turned. Right. Tea had to greet him. “Hey, listen—”

Tea ignored her and knocked her shot back. Natalya did too.

She kept up with Tea for the rest of the night, which was a mistake. Natalya wasn’t a soldier, and Tea had a soldier’s tolerance. But Tea was right. Natalya didn’t have anywhere to be tomorrow morning, and no reports to send either.

It became clear pretty early that Tea didn’t feel the need to talk much. Natalya was fine with that. At some point Tea put her hand on Natalya’s leg underneath the table, and that was nice. Her thumb moved back and forth, a point of warmth against Natalya’s inner thigh. It felt nice. 

Natalya rarely drank when she was on a mission. Not because she became a danger to the mission, but because opportunities to take a night off came few and far between. She should be in her room running the numbers, calculating the best way forward. She was wasting time she could be dedicating to the mission. 

When she let herself lean far towards Tea, it was calculated enough to be a maneuver, something she would have done the same way if she was sober. What she said was a consequence of the alcohol burning at the back of her throat. 

“Would you still—”

Tea’s thumb stilled its movement, but even before that the rest of Natalya’s question stuck in her throat. 

Tea sighed. “Orth makes the decisions.”

“Yeah.” Natalya stared at the table. “Yeah.”

Tea took her hand back. Natalya wanted— She wanted a lot of things, but right now she would settle for the weight of Tea’s palm back on her thigh. 

“I’ll walk you back to your room.” 

“No,” Natalya said, “I’ll be fine.”

Tea let her walk out. Natalya woke up the next morning with a hangover and downed the water Tea made her take, and didn’t think about it.

 

Natalya left the med bay the minute she thought she was well enough to walk to her quarters. She made it to the hallway sallow and shaky, but she made it. 

She took just a second to rest against the wall.

Her metal leg hurt, which of course she had anticipated, but it hurt all the way up her spine. Little pinpricks as her old nerve endings sparked and connected to her new ones. That’s what the Seventh Sun’s doctors told her was happening, anyway. Her brain couldn’t decide whether the cyberware felt numb or felt like it was on fire. 

“Oh, there you—” 

Natalya’s head snapped around. 

Tea finished rounding the corner. “Funny meeting you here.”

Natalya opened her mouth to tease back, but she couldn’t. “What are you doing here?”

“Got wind that someone escaped the medical bay.”

Natalya tried to push off from the wall and swayed. 

“Oops,” Tea said. That was her arm around Natalya’s waist. “Here we go.”

Natalya twitched her shoulders away. “I’m fine.”

“Okay.” Tea put her hands up. 

“My room’s just there.” Natalya pointed to the door, a bit further down the hall.

Tea nodded but stuck around, keeping pace as Natalya wobbled the ten feet. 

She leaned against the doorframe and took out her keycard. “Look, I’m not going to die on the way to my bed.”

Tea looked away just as Natalya’s door slid open. “I wanted to talk to you, Greaves.”

“Wow.” The last five steps were somehow the hardest. Natalya collapsed onto her mattress. “Next time I want to talk to you I’ll just get myself hurt. Slam my hand in a door or something.”

“What does that mean.” Tea, to Natalya’s surprise, remained in the hallway, firmly outside the threshold. The automatic door slid shut in her face. 

“Um,” Tea called. 

“Oh my god.” Natalya rooted around for something to throw—this was a military ship, for god’s sake, she didn’t exactly collect knick-knacks—and lobbed her pillow at the switch. It bounced to the ground as the door slid open. Tea looked a bit sheepish. 

Natalya pointed at the floor. “I need that.”

Tea brought her the pillow. She awkwardly fluffed it a bit, seemingly for something to do with her hands. “You should elevate your leg.”

Natalya wanted to hurry her along to her point, but she wasn’t sure she had the mental fortitude for that particular battle at the moment. And Tea knew what she was talking about when it came to injuries. The cyberware fit in place just above her knee, so she had to wedge the pillow under her thigh to elevate the part that was actually prone to swelling. That was its own battle and then she was sitting on her bed, strained and covered in sweat and barely able to keep her eyes open, waiting.

The thing about making herself vulnerable in front of Tea is that once she started, it seemed impossible to stop.

Tea kept her eyes on the gleaming cyberware. 

“You wanted to talk to me,” Natalya prompted. She needed to sleep. She could never sleep in hospitals.

“Just to check in,” Tea said. “Sorry I didn’t see you sooner. Things have been busy.”

There had been military strikes every day, every night, since Natalya ended up in the med bay. 

Tea brushed her fingers against the side of Natalya’s knee. Natalya couldn’t help making a very soft noise. 

“Do you have feeling in it?”

“Yeah.”

“Does it hurt?”

“A...little?”

Tea snatched her hand away. “Sorry.”

“Hey,” Natalya reached for some lightness, “not your fault.” 

Tea tensed up. She transformed the movement into a shrug and half-turned away, but Natalya noticed. 

“Tea…”

Tea exhaled and turned back and then said, “Listen, if you need anything—”

“Of course. I’ll run to you because everything bad that happens is your fault, and you’re the only one who can fix anything around here.”

Tea tensed up again. So much for lightness. “You said it, not me.”

She touched Natalya’s metal knee again, lightly, and left. There was a beat where Natalya could have said something, but she was so tired. She slept.

 

The first time they fucked was the last chance they had left. 

Tea’s room was bigger than Natalya’s but otherwise much the same. No identifying personal touches. Or if there had been, Tea cleared them out in anticipation of the push on Counterweight. 

Natalya didn’t spend a lot of time scrutinizing the decor. She stretched out the collar of Tea’s uniform, sliding her hands under the fabric of Tea’s bra, looking for more bare skin.

Tea was slow and deliberate where Natalya was impatient, unsteady. She held Natalya’s hands and stepped close enough that Natalya would have to tilt her head back to kiss her. They hadn’t had time to figure out how to fit together. Natalya took a half-step back and Tea hesitated, something more immediate than uncertainty on her face. 

Natalya kept going, backed herself into the wall and used their linked hands to pull Tea with her, boxing herself in. She wanted the entire galaxy to disappear except for Tea’s room, except for the bare inches of space between them. She didn’t know how to ask for it. Didn’t know if it was a fair thing to ask of someone.

Soft lips pried hers apart and Natalya told herself to stop thinking. She hooked a leg around Tea’s waist. Tea pressed her further into the wall and Natalya’s thigh slipped. When Tea grabbed at Natalya to steady her, her fingers dug into the still-sensitive seam between flesh and metal and Natalya flinched. 

“Sorry.” Tea put her hands up, letting Natalya’s leg fall back to the ground.

“It’s fine,” Natalya said, standing awkwardly with a her fist tangled in the front of Tea’s uniform, “just touch me.”

Tea put her arms around Natalya’s waist. She crouched a little, and the next second had picked Natalya up and laid her down on the bed. 

Natalya gasped and said, “Alright, Queen Captain—”

She didn’t have a second part to that thought. 

Tea turned dark red and she buried her flushed face in Natalya’s neck and finally reciprocated with a bite just above her collarbone. Natalya shifted and unbuttoned her pants, and then Tea got the hint and helped her get them off. 

Then Tea was in between her bent legs, her uniform wrinkled and out of place. She kissed Natalya’s anklebone, running her hands feather-light up both legs, metal and flesh. She stopped to give attention to the side of Natalya’s knee and the crease of her thigh before she finally mouthed over her underwear, where Natalya was wet and half-hard. 

Tea ate her out. It was awkward and new and it was good, or maybe it was just that this was the first time she’d had sex in months. It didn’t quite turn her brain off. She ran her hands through Tea’s short hair and wondered what she was thinking. She arched up into Tea’s mouth and knew that this was probably the last time they would do this. 

Natalya knew just enough about Tea to know that she would doom the Golden Branch given half the chance and think she was doing the right thing. Tea thought the same about her. 

Tea pulled off and kissed up her thighs, pushed her shirt up to kiss along her stomach, over tender scars that weren’t there two months ago. She was breathless and beautiful and in control like always. Natalya said so, and Tea took a full, deep breath. 

Natalya came in Tea’s mouth, her tongue at the head of her clit, and for that breathless moment, the galaxy shrank.

**Author's Note:**

> i think natalya and tea spoke to each other once in the entire kingdom game? i don't know.
> 
> the title is from where does the good go by tegan and sara. the song doesn't relate to this at all, but.


End file.
